Physicians commonly perform device insertion procedures for diagnostic or interventional purposes, such as tissue biopsy or drug delivery. As one example, a needle or is inserted in such a way that the needle tip intersects a target of interest (e.g., a tumor). As another example, a catheter can be inserted into the heart to deliver a therapy (e.g., ablation) to heart tissue. These procedures are complicated by the fact that devices are subject to bending while inside the tissue and that the target may move, due either to physiological motions, such as breathing, or due to tissue deformations resulting from the device-tissue interaction. To mitigate problems caused by the uncertainty of the target position and the device configuration, intra-operative medical imaging techniques, such as X-ray fluoroscopy, ultrasound, computerized tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging, can be used to provide real-time information about the device and target locations, and thus allow the device (e.g., needle, catheter or the like) to be steered.